This competition needs no introduction. For the past month the community has been voting for their favorite mods. The votes were cast and the results are in. There are a few surprize packets but all in all, the results reflect the 2005 mod making year.

The problem with Something of the Year Awards is that everyone's taste is different and there are over 3,000 mods competing to be in the top 30. One person may like blinding paced gameplay, with gibs and glory decided every second while others like slow and strategic team play. You can't please everyone and we don't intend to - hence we let *you* the community vote for your top mods and we throw in a few of our favorites along the way.

This is one area we are always criticized in, the fact that these awards recognize the most popular mods and not necessarily the best. I certainly don't disagree, it is a shame that some brilliantly through and detailed mods made for games with a smaller community don't make the cut. But we must all keep in mind that there is a reason *why* these mods are so popular and it isn't because they are bribing 1,000's of people!

With this in mind let’s discuss the year that was 2005. Compared to previous years, it felt a little slow due to a slew of new games been introduced with new SDK's to learn. As mod teams made the switch to the next generation engines, so the learning process re-began and it took quite some time before we started to see what the new breed of mods were capable of doing. We are still a fair way off maximizing these engines potential so there are certainly exciting times ahead.

Results

2004 was Half-Life 1's year and 2005 is Half-Life 2's year with mods from other games such as Battlefield, the UT series and Doom 3 also making the cut. Valve really has recognized the importance of mods and capitalized on the mod making movement. Their continual support and close ties with the mod making community has placed them in a position of power and the path they have blazed is been chased by the other game developers. Proof of this is the sheer number of mods made on their engine which have since gone pro. Their community is a force to be reckoned with and whilst they may be knocked off their perch in 2006, in 2005 they still reign supreme.

Congratulations to everyone who won. I'm really suprised about AW7 winning a mod of the year award seeing as it was only out for about 5 days before the end of the year, and alot of people don't like Postal. Anyway... Thanks to everyone that voted!

Righto, I'm fine with the BMS Team , i'm fine with BMS and where it is.

I think the BMS team is quite talented , maybe the best mod team there is but i've talked to a few in the team and they say the same thing about Kal , i just stated my point... Everyone has an opioion... YOu guys love him , i think he dosnt deserve the attention hes got.

Said and said, i didnt want to start a war or anything BLue Wolf so back down.
*bark bark*

I think everyone should stop arguing over Garrys Mod and get on with other discussions. Garrys Mod is controversial. He took code from a developer of JB mod who gave it to him, and when JB mod said it was their code, Garry said he didn't know and kept the code in Garrys Mod. Garry and JB started the same way, except JB mode went down due to the massive advertising Garry had going out.

Either way, it has such a huge community that it was going to win regardless so congrats to Garry for his win.

Folks, stop talking about it. Garrys Mod is Garrys Mod, simple. If you want to complain about it winning, head over to the Dystopia forums where they seem pretty choked about.

"Didn't Garry (from Garry's mod) steal from other mods and then threaten to sue them?"

Maybe not, but the latest versions of Garry's mod are just scripted 'games' written by OTHER PEOPLE thrown in and called 'Content'. I mean, that'd be like Dystopia decompiling CounterStrike and putting it in as a 'minigame' and calling it original content.

Big congratulations out to the top mods and the top upcoming. It feel in line somewhere in the region I expected, but Dystopia beat my fourth I estimated for them, so great job Teddy and the team. Garry's Mod, hands down, was going to win. Its massive success has stretched straight across the board in terms of playability and replayability: both of which are critical factors in many popular mods. A congrats goes out to Garry Newman: another medal to add to his collection (or which some will call his ego).

The Top Genre, again I agree with most of them. The Tetris was weird, but come on now folks: for a community which registered Red Orchestra as a Sports Mod, we needed some more irrational, uncomprehendable and outrageous actions to keep it normal for ModDB. Once again, congrats. A big big congrats goes out to Insurgency and Fortress Forever, the two other Half-Life 2 mods that made it into the Best Upcoming lineup. I was personally betting that Insurgency would have taken Best Mod, beating us out, but when they scored third I was shocked.

Anyways, a great run around this time and I'm pumped we got into the Best Upcoming.

I was expecting you guys to take it because of the beta-testing thing you guys put out while the voting was on. I was pumped nonetheless and congrats Argyll, I hope to see a release from you guys soon.

"Maybe not, but the latest versions of Garry's mod are just scripted 'games' written by OTHER PEOPLE thrown in and called 'Content'. I mean, that'd be like Dystopia decompiling CounterStrike and putting it in as a 'minigame' and calling it original content."

No, it'd be like Dystopia putting maps in there that Teddy hasn't created and calling it original content. Oh wait that's how it works.

GMod was designed so people could add their scripted gamemodes and weapons in - it wasn't an accident.

Heh, kind of a surprise that you should pick a doom3 mod for an award, not that I mind, I'm completely utterly proud and appreciate it a lot. And the best story category would be our mods strong point. God knows we've been trying to make the story unforgettable. Year in writing and we're still lacking some stuff!

I tested gmod. And honestly its not a mod. As i understod it, it just gives you admin comands over source engine. Its pretty much something to goof off with for 30-60 minutes and than never again. I admit its a nice idea and it deserves a placing on the avards but no way its a mod of the year.

Like the feature says, Gmod has spawned so many forms of entertainment, It doesn't matter how short-lived it is for each person, the fact of the matter is that so many people have tried it out and played around with the Source engine. Many of these people have started thinking about what could be fun gameplay and have started making their own content for Gmod or otherwise. Garry's mod is a household name in the modding community and has achieved this accolade because of the fact that it has no set gameplay. Essentially its a mod that lets you make your own game, it is to computer games what lego was to toys. Besides, in this part of the competition it's the votes that count and Gmod beat its nearest competitor by almost 2:1! All the other mods had the same conditions for winning, Gmod simply has the biggest fanbase, how can you argue with that?

Ok, maybe I'm a bit behind on my info but I never heard the part of the story where garry thretend to sue. People did however claim that garry stole his matirials from JB mod. Though JB did come first, all he truly did was take some matirials valve themselfs left in and expanding on them.

I never used any code from JBMod. I don't know why people think I did. I really did not.

I mean think about it - what in GMod could use JBMod's code? The physgun is included with the SDK.

Also - I never advertised GMod. I really didn't. I don't have a awesome "promoter" or whatever some mod teams have (I call them "hangers on"). GMod got promoted by people because they liked it - not because I sent everyone an email asking them to pimp it. The most I ever did was send an email to hl2net/hlf/moddb/phl when I released a big update - but every mod should be doing that anyway. I'd also like you to note that on the promotional front GMod has NEVER been mentioned in one of Valve's "weekly updates" - a lot of the released mods have - so if it was all about promotion they should have the lead there.

I really don't get the "It's not a mod" statement. If it wasn't a mod you'd just be playing Half-Life 2.

I didnt think you deserved mod of the year but after seeing the votes you got and I releasized that out of all the mods in 2005 your mod allows you to do the most in one mod so i went out and asked 10 people if they thought the same if they voted for you. 8 said you can do the most in only one mod and that was GMOD and the other 2 were all about the mod they worked on. My point is I do think you deserve the award!

I didnt think you deserved mod of the year but after seeing the votes you got and I realized that out of all the mods in 2005 your mod allows you to do the most in one mod so i went out and asked 10 people if they thought the same if they voted for you. 8 said you can do the most in only one mod and that was GMOD and the other 2 were all about the mod they worked on. Not everyone is going to be happy with mod awards from moddb.com or if it was from modawards.com. Anyways my point is I do think you deserve the award!